Paly's Don't Seem To Be Doing So Hot.....

[cm11599ps]

This is my first experience in SW tanks. On 3/19 I started my tank with all dry rock and dry sand and 2 raw shrimp for cycling. Somewhere around April 23 my tank finished cycling. I had put in 2 balls of Chaeto and a small piece of LR during the cycle too.

I was at zeroed out for all the cycling parameters and then did a small water change. I waited a few days and then added my CUC of 4 hermits, 4 astrea snails, 2 peppermint shrimp (to get rid of aiptasia on LR) and a firefish. This was all done a week ago and everyone has been doing fine.

4 days ago I got some coral from a local reefer.

1) small frag orange digitata
2) small frag purple digitata
3) small frag green w/ purple rim monti
4) green mushroom rock
5) 2 shells with green palys, about 12 heads total
6) small frogspawn

The palys opend up right away when I put them in the tank. The frogspawn and mushrooms didn't get to size until a day or two later. So far I've fed the tank a small serving of reef chili twice and a small chunck of frozen spirulina brine shrimp. The palys ate everytime. They kind of resemble a venus fly trap. Here's a pic from about 2-3 days ago.

Here's a pic from just now.

Sorry for the pics, iPhone pics cause my camera is dead. Right now the tentacles are kind of in disarray. They heads kind of look like they're eating but they're not. It's hard to explain. some of the arms bend in like it's feeding but they just stay there. I have 2 oyster shells on opposite sides of my tank with these guys and both sets seem to be experiencing the sam things. Everyone else in the tank seems to doing well.

I did a water test last night just to check things. Last night they were doing fine.

temp 81
pH 8.3
ammonia .25
nitrite 0
nitrate 0
calcium 360 alk 8
phosphate .1
salt 1.024

I use an APEX and change about a gallon per day in my roughly 77 gallon sysem. 55 DT with about 22 in my sump/fuge. I haven't tested the water today because my auto water change system is going right now.

 

[SaltWater226]

needs a little more light. Move them up a little.

 

[MikeandNicole]

First off you want your ammonia to be zero, any reading above zero is too high. You can try moving them up, but to be very blunt with you, you don't want to have button polyps in your tank. They can grow at incredible rates that will suffocate other things out. They can also be very toxic and I know a few people that have had them crash their tanks.

 

[cm11599ps]

I've actually been changing a couple gallons a day and am still getting a trace ammonia reading but they are definitely doing better. I did move one of the shells up about 1/2 in the tank and left the other on the substrate. I don't think light was the issue, it seems to be the ammonia.

 

[gh0st]

Probably the ammonia, cut back on feeding and increase water changes/skimming, etc until they are gone.

Button polyps are fine as long as you don't ingest the slime or the polyps, etc. They can be fast growers, just place them well away from anything you don't want encroached upon.

I think most people who have polyps "crash there tank" are to busy pointing fingers at things to diagnose the real cause of the problem. Some parameter probably got out of whack and corals started dying, causing a chain reaction of degrading water quality.

I've killed and accidentally mutilated more than my fair share of polyps, and never once has anything else in the tank suffered. Just my humble opinion.

 

[barbianj]

In addition to the ammonia, it wouldn't hurt to bring the sg up a little. That will increase the calcium. You also want to test for magnesium. If it drops too low, it's more difficult to maintain Alk and Ca levels.

Even though your tank cycled and levels zeroed out, it's a little early to add corals for a first time experience. I would also guess that a combo of ammonia and low light is stressing the palys. They're pretty tough to stress out, but on the bright side, they bounce back quickly.

Slow down and let everything even out before adding anything else. You will be going through diatom and algae growths, which look like they have already begun.

 

[cm11599ps]

Thanks guys. I"m now wondering if they were simply eating. I did notice a huge pod explosion in my DT at the same time. My tank looked like a snow globe with all of them floating around.

I've been changing a few gallons daily and right now these guys are bigger then ever. I put them in the tank just under 2 weeks ago and I have already seen at least 3 new heads pop up since then. Guess everything is fine and they were just funky looking due to eating the pods?

 

[mallorieGgator]

Sometimes zoas and palys will shrink and look strange when they are adding new polyps to their bases. It was probably your ammonia that was bothering them. I've noticed small amounts of ammonia used to make my zoas close as well.

 

[cm11599ps]

Sometimes zoas and palys will shrink and look strange when they are adding new polyps to their bases. It was probably your ammonia that was bothering them. I've noticed small amounts of ammonia used to make my zoas close as well.

Pardon my ignorance, but are mine going to look like your avatar eventually?

 

[cm11599ps]

bump